The charity behind the Kony 2012 film, now viewed more than 100 million times online, faces an unprecedented backlash after its co-founder was detained by police and the Ugandan government released of a video denouncing the viral campaign.

Invisible Children was left embarrassed last week after its filmmaker and co-founder, Jason Russell, was hospitalised after being found screaming and allegedly performing a sex act on a San Diego street. Police told the National Post they detained a 33-year-old white man but would not confirm it was Mr. Russell.

Video footage has now emerged of Russell’s infamous naked antics. The new footage of shows him completely naked, running back and forth on a street corner and yelling incoherently about the devil.

Mr. Russell’s wife and Invisible Children, in separate statements, blamed his behaviour on exhaustion and dehydration.

“Because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal and Jason took them very hard,” said the statement from Danica Russell.

But it could be a video by the Ugandan government, centered on Kony 2012’s dated information, that causes the campaign to capture Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony real damage.

“The Kony 2012 campaign fails to make one crucial point clear. Joseph Kony is not in Uganda,” Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi said in a 9-minute video posted on YouTube on Saturday.

Mr. Mbabazi said Uganda was on Mr. Kony’s trail.

“You may all be assured that the Government of Uganda is acutely aware of the grievous damage which has been caused to our people by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army,” he said in the video. “We do not need a slick video on YouTube for us to take notice.”

Mr. Mbabazi has also taken to Twitter to invite the celebrities targeted by Invisible Children in its video to spread awareness about Mr. Kony to come to Uganda and see the country for themselves.

“As PM of Uganda, I invite you to visit the Pearl of Africa & see the peace that exists in our wonderful country,” he wrote in tweets to celebrities, including Ryan Seacrest, Taylor Swift and Warren Buffett using the tag #KonyisntinUganda.

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Wanted by the International Criminal Court, Mr. Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group, is accused of abducting children to use as fighters and sex slaves and is said to have a fondness for hacking off limbs.

Survivors of the LRA in northern Uganda have said the film, which took several weeks to reach them because of limited Internet access, has reawakened “bitter memories.”

Standing outside a school hall in the town of Gulu, Otto Santonino tried to explain the impact of the film he had just watched.

“It brings back such bad memories of all the terrible things that happened to us during the war,” said Santonino, a 79-year old former parish chief in the town that suffered most from the LRA’s actions.

He pointed to where his left arm should be.

Santonino says he lost his arm over 20 years ago when he was caught and tortured by Ugandan government troops as they battled the fearsome LRA guerrillas and Mr. Kony in a brutal civil war.

That was why Santonino, along with around 150 other cultural and political leaders from the Acholi ethnic group — the group Kony belongs to — organized a screening of the film over the weekend.

Local representatives from Invisible Children were invited to discuss the video, but the film has already drawn ire from some in northern Uganda.

“We thought there should have been an outreach program for that video here before they showed it to the rest of the world — they should have launched it here,” said Peter Okello, Gulu district speaker and one of the event organizers.

A local youth group was forced to stop showing the film last week after residents in the town of Lira reacted angrily to the video’s perceived over-simplifications during an outdoor screening.

While most people at the screening in Gulu praised Invisible Children for the work they do rebuilding schools and providing scholarships in northern Uganda, some at the event reiterated concerns about the film.

“The video does not reflect the real situation on the ground in northern Uganda,” said Patrick Luom, a program officer for the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, an influential local multi-faith group.

“It stirs up difficult memories of the old situation here and mentions little about the fact that the LRA is now in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan,” Mr. Luom added.

Mr. Luom said that many in northern Uganda would find the film one-sided, as it failed to mention atrocities committed by other sides in the conflict — including the government troops.

“It ignored crimes committed by other parties…the crimes in northern Uganda were not just committed by the LRA,” Mr. Luom said.

Jacob Acaye, a former LRA abductee who features in the film as a young boy, told AFP that while Mr. Kony may no longer be in northern Uganda, he was still committing atrocities in neighboring countries and had to be halted.

“He needs to be stopped no matter what — that is what the campaign is about,” said Mr. Acaye, now a law student in Kampala.

Norbert Mao, a leading Ugandan opposition politician from the region who was also interviewed in the film, said that the film makers had to simplify the issue to make it appeal to a global audience.

As for Mr. Santonino, the local chief who lost his arm during the war, like several leaders at the meeting, he said he doubted that the purely military strategy demanded by Invisible Children could help end the LRA threat — even though Mr. Kony has previously failed to sign numerous peace deals.

“I believe in peace talks, and that they are the only way that Kony will come out — we have seen too many military efforts fail and they will not be successful again,” he said.

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